Wicked Day (24 page)

"Except that it will strike through me! You think I shall wait passively for that? I shall find a way!"

She was contemptuous. "Why pretend to be so loyal? Are you telling me that you love him, all in a moment? You have neither love nor loyalty in you. Look how you have turned against me, and you were to serve me all your days."

"One cannot build on rotten rock!" he said, furiously. She was smiling now. "If I am rotten, you are my blood, Mordred. My blood."

"And his!"

"A son is his mother's stamp," she said.

"Not always! The others are yours, and their sire's, you have only to look at them. But I, no one would know me for your son!"

"But you are like me. They are not. They are bold, handsome fighters, with the minds of wild cattle. You are a witch's son, Mordred, with a smooth and subtle tongue and a serpent's tooth and a mind that works in silence. My tongue. My bite. My mind." She smiled a slow, rich smile. "They may keep me shut up till my life's end, but now my brother Arthur has taken to himself another such: a son with his mother's mind."

The cold had crept into his very bones. He said huskily: "This is not true. You cannot come at him through me. I am my own man. I will not harm him."

She leaned forward. She spoke softly, still smiling. "Mordred, listen to me. You are young, and you do not know the world. I hated Merlin, but he was never wrong. If Merlin saw it written in the stars that you would be Arthur's doom, then how can you escape it? There will come a day, the wicked day of destiny, when all will come to pass as he foretold. And I, too, have seen something, not in the heavens, but in the pool below the earth."

"What?" he asked, hoarsely.

She still spoke softly. There was colour in her face now, and her eyes shone. She looked beautiful. "I have seen a queen for you, Mordred, and a throne if you have the strength to take it. A fair queen and a high throne. And I see a snake striking at the kingdom's heel."

The words seemed to echo round the room, deep in note like a bell. Mordred spoke quickly, trying to kill the magic. "If I turned on him, then indeed I would be a snake."

"If you are," rejoined Morgause smoothly, "it is a role you share with the brightest of the angels, and the one who was closest to his lord."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, stories the nuns tell."

He said, very angrily: "You are talking nonsense to frighten me! I am not Lot or Gabran, a besotted tool to do your murders for you. You said I was like you. Very well. Now that I am warned, I shall know what to do. If I have to leave court and stay away from him, I shall do it. No power on earth can make me lift a hand to kill unless I wish it, and this death I swear to you I shall never undertake. I swear it by the Goddess herself."

No echo. The magic was gone. The shouted words fell into dead air. He stood panting, a hand clenched on his sword hilt.

"Brave words," said Morgause, very lightly, and laughed aloud.

He turned and ran from the room, slamming the door to shut off the laughter which followed him like a curse.

3

ONCE BACK IN CAMELOT THE memory of Amesbury and its imprisoned queen began to fade as the boys were plunged again into the life and excitement of the capital.

At first Gaheris complained loudly to whoever would listen about the hardships his mother was obviously suffering. Mordred, who might have enlightened him, said nothing. Nor did he mention his own interview with the queen. The younger boys probed now and then, but were met with silence, so soon stopped asking, and lost interest. Gawain, who must have guessed what the tenor of that interview might be, was perhaps unwilling to risk a snub, so showed no curiosity, and was told nothing. Arthur did ask Mordred how he had fared, then, accepting his son's "Well enough, sir, but not well enough to crave another meeting," merely nodded and turned the subject. It was observed that the King was angry, bored or impatient if his sisters were spoken of, so mention of them was avoided, and in time they were almost forgotten.

Queen Morgause was not after all sent north to join her sister Morgan. The latter, in fact, came south.

When King Urbgen, after a grim and lengthy interview with the High King, had finally put Queen Morgan aside, and given her back into Arthur's jurisdiction, she was held for some time at Caer Eidyn, but eventually won her brother's grudging permission to travel south to her own castle — one that Arthur himself had granted her in happier days — among the hills to the north of Caerleon. Once settled there, with a guard of Arthur's soldiers and such of her women as were willing to remain in captivity with her, she settled down to a small approximation of a royal court, and proceeded (so rumour said, and for once rumour was right) to hatch little plots of hatred against her brother and her husband, as busily and almost as cozily as a hen hatches her eggs.

She also besieged the King from time to time, through the royal couriers, for various favours. One repeated request was for her "dear sister" to be allowed to join her at Castell Aur. It was well known that the two royal ladies had little fondness for one another, and Arthur, when he brought himself to think about it all, suspected that Morgan's desire to join forces with Morgause was literally that: a wish to double the baneful power of such magic as she had. Here rumour spoke again, in whispers: It was being said that Queen Morgan far surpassed Morgause in power, and that none of it was used for good. So Morgan's requests were shrugged off, the High King tending, like any lesser man beset by a nagging woman, to shut his ears and turn the other way. He simply referred the matter to his chief adviser, and had the sense to let a woman deal with the women.

Nimuë's advice was clear and simple: keep them guarded, and keep them apart. So the two queens remained under guard, one in Wales, the other still in Amesbury, but — again on Nimuë's advice — not too strictly prisoned.

"Leave them their state and their titles, their fine clothing and their lovers," she said, and when the King raised his brows, "Men soon forget what has happened, and a fair woman under duress is a center for plotting and disaffection. Don't make martyrs. In a few years' time the younger men won't know or care that Morgause poisoned Merlin, or did murder here and there. They have already forgotten that she and Lot massacred the babies at Dunpeldyr. Give any evildoer a year or two of punishment, and there will be some fool willing to wave a banner and shout, "Cruelty, let them go." Let them have the things that don't matter, but keep them close, and watch them always."

So Queen Morgan held her small court at Castell Aur, and sent her frequent letters along the couriers'

road to Camelot, and Queen Morgause remained in the convent at Amesbury. She was permitted to increase the state in which she lived, but even so her captivity was possibly not so easy as her sister's, involving as it did a certain degree of lip-service to the monastic rule. But Morgause had her methods. To the abbot she presented herself as one who, long shut away from the true faith in the pagan darkness of the Orkneys, was eager and willing to learn all she could about the "new religion" of the Christians. The women who served her attended the devotions of the good sisters, and spent many long hours helping with the nuns' sewing and other, more menial tasks. It might have been noted that the queen herself was content to delegate this side of her devotions, but she was civility itself to the abbess, and that elderly and innocent lady was easily deceived by the attentions of one who was half-sister to the High King himself, whatever the supposed crimes she had committed.

"Supposed crimes." Nimuë was right. As time went by, the memory of Morgause's alleged crimes grew fainter, and the impression, carefully fostered by the lady herself, of a sweet sad captive, devoted to her royal brother, reft from her beloved sons, and far from her own land, grew, spreading far beyond the convent walls. And though it was common knowledge that the High King's eldest "nephew" bore in fact a closer and somewhat scandalous relationship to the throne — well, it had happened a long time ago, in dark and troubled times, when Arthur and Morgause were very young, and even now you could see how lovely she must have been… still was.…

So the years passed, and the boys became young men, and took their places at court, and Morgause's dark deeds became a legend rather than a true memory, and Morgause herself lived on comfortably at Amesbury; rather more comfortably, in fact, than she had lived either in her chilly fortress of Dunpeldyr or the windy fastness of the Orkneys. What she lacked, and fretted for, was power, something more than she exercised over her small and private court. As time went by and it became obvious that she would never leave Amesbury, was, in fact, almost forgotten, she turned back secretly to her magic arts, convincing herself that here lay the seeds of influence and real power. One skill certainly remained with her; whether it was the plants carefully watched over in the nunnery gardens, or the spells with which they were gathered and prepared, Morgause's unguents and perfumes still worked their strong magic. Her beauty stayed with her, and with it her power over men.

She had lovers. There was the young gardener who tended the herbs and simples for her brewing, a handsome youth who had once had hopes of joining the brotherhood. It might be said that the queen did him a favour. Four months as her lover taught him that the world outside the walls held delights that at sixteen he could not bear to renounce; when she dismissed him eventually with a gift of gold, he left the convent and went to Aquae Sulis, where he met the daughter of a wealthy merchant, and thereafter prospered exceedingly. After him came others, and it was easier still when a garrison established itself on the Great Plain for exercises, and the officers tended to ride into Amesbury after work to sample what the local tavern had to offer in the way of wine and entertainment. Simpler yet when Lamorak, who had brought the boys on that long-ago visit to see their mother, was appointed garrison commander, and took it upon himself to call at the convent to ask after the health of the captive queen. She received him herself, charmingly. He called again, with gifts. Within the month they were lovers, Lamorak vowing that it had been love at first sight, and lamenting that so many wasted years had passed since their first meeting in the woodland ride.

Twice, during these years, Arthur lodged nearby, the first time with the garrison, the second time in Amesbury itself, at the house of the headman.

On the first occasion, despite Morgause's efforts, he refused to see her, contenting himself with sending to the abbess and asking formally after the prisoner's health and wellbeing, and sending deputies —

Bedwyr and, ironically, Lamorak — to talk with the queen. The second time occurred some two years later. He would have preferred to sleep again at garrison head-quarters, but this might have seemed slighting to the headman's hospitality, so he lodged in the town. He gave orders that while he was in the township Morgause should not be permitted outside the convent walls, and he was obeyed. But one evening when he and half a dozen of his Companions sat at supper with the abbot and the head citizens of the township, two of Morgause's women came to the door with a tale of the captive queen's sickness, and pathetic pleas for the King's presence at her bedside. She longed only, they said, for the King's forgiveness before she died. Or if he was still set against her, she begged — and it could be seen, from the messengers' faces, with what pathos — that he should grant at least one dying wish. This was that she should see her sons once more.

Lot's sons were not in Amesbury with the King. Gaheris was with the garrison on the Plain; Gawain with the other two brothers was still in Camelot. The only one of the five in Amesbury was Mordred, who, as always now, was at his father's side.

To him Arthur, waving the women back out of earshot, said softly: "Dying? Do you suppose this is true?"

"She was out riding three days ago."

"Oh? Who says so?"

"The swineherd in the beech wood. I stopped and spoke with him. She gave him a coin once, so he watches for her. He calls her 'the pretty queen.' "

Arthur frowned, tapping the table. "There's been a cold wind all the week. I suppose she could have taken a chill. Even so—" He paused. "Well, I'll send someone tomorrow. Then, if this tale is true, I suppose I must go myself."

"And by tomorrow everything will be suitably arranged."

The King looked at him sharply. "What do you mean by that?"

Mordred said dryly: "When she sent for me before, she was alone in a cold room with no comforts. I saw them through the door, hastily stacked in the next room."

Arthur's frown deepened. "So you suspect trickery here? Still? But how? What could she do?"

Mordred shifted his shoulders as if he felt cold. "Who knows? As she reminded me, more than once, she is a witch. Keep away from her, sir. Or — let me go and see for myself if this tale of mortal sickness is true."

"You are not afraid of her witchcraft?"

"She has asked to see her sons," said Mordred, "and I am the only one here in Amesbury." He did not add that though his spirit, fed with fear by Morgause herself, shrank from her, he knew himself to be safe.

He was to be — he could still hear the angry spitting voice — his father's bane. To that end she would preserve him, as she had done through those early years.

He said: "If you send now, sir, to say you will see her in the morning, that is when —if this is indeed a trick — she will make her preparations. I myself will go now, tonight."

After a little more discussion the King agreed, and, returning gratefully to his guests, sent one of his Companions to inform Queen Morgause that he would see her on the morrow.

As before, he sent Lamorak.

There was a horse tied up outside the orchard wall. Here the coping was low, and a bough of an old apple tree had forced the bricks outwards until they bulged, then broke and fell, making a place that could, with agility and the help of a horse's saddle, be climbed.

The night was moonless, but the sky glistened with stars as thick and numerous as daisies on a lawn.